Father's Day Can Be An Empty Experience For Divorced Dads

June 13, 1985|By Stephen Wigler of the Sentinel Staff

Father's Day is an unusually happy occasion for most fathers, a time when they can sleep late and are showered with love and appreciation by their children. But for divorced fathers who do not have custody of their children and will not be able to see them, Father's Day can be an upsetting time that reminds them of what they have lost.

''It's a depressing day,'' said John Misuraca. ''You're 1,200 miles away from them, and the only thing that can brighten your day is a card or a phone call.''

Misuraca, a 42-year-old Winter Park man, is the president of the Central Florida chapter of Parents Without Partners, a support group for divorced and widowed parents. Misuraca is luckier than most fathers in his position, however. His 10-year-old daughter pays him extended visits four times a year, and her mother encourages her to write and call frequently.

''Some fathers don't have that kind of support,'' Misuraca said.

According to the Census Bureau, about 10 percent of all divorced fathers now get custody of their children, but until recently the mother almost invariably got custody.

''A lot of it had to do with the culture,'' said Nancy Rainey, an Orlando attorney who specializes in family law. ''Women were at home, and the thought was that a mother would be able to spend more time with the children than the father.''

Laws have begun to change, Rainey said, because the nature of American families has. Nowadays, mothers are as likely to be members of the work force as fathers, and fathers are more likely to take an equal share in the responsibilities of child rearing.

One sign of the new attitude was the adoption in 1983 of Florida's Shared Parental Responsibility Act. The law states that the father of a child, regardless of the child's age, must be given the same consideration as the mother in determining custody. Because of the statute, children of couples divorced after July 1982 usually are in the custody of both parents, who are bound by law to share parental responsibilities.

Nevertheless, the law is next to impossible to enforce if one parent moves into another state with the children. Less than a year ago, the ex-wife of one Orlando man left Central Florida suddenly with their 4-year-old daughter and infant son. While the father, a 33-year-old computer specialist, said he suspects that his wife took the children to a Northern state, he doesn't have an address or a telephone number.

''The new law is real good on paper, but still I have no contact with my children,'' the man said.

Another limitation of the law, many fathers noted, is that it applies only to couples who were divorced after July 1982.

''We have created two classes of fathers and two classes of children,'' said a 45-year-old Orlando architect who was divorced five years ago.

Last year on Father's Day the man did not get to see his daughter, who lives with her mother in Central Florida.

''A child needs to see her father as much -- if not more -- than she needs child-support payments,'' he said. ''If I were writing the laws, there would be an equal penalty for failing to let a father see his child.''